Financial markets have had the roughest October in years as investors have grown wary over future corporate profits and the Federal Reserve’s (Fed) monetary policy plans. Even as markets fluctuate, we encourage investors to focus on the fundamentals. We remain optimistic on the U.S. economy, and we believe that continued solid growth would likely support corporate profits and asset prices.

Third-quarter gross domestic product (GDP) and the Fed’s Beige Book — both released last week — confirmed that the U.S. economy is on solid footing. Third-quarter GDP, which grew 3.5%, topped the Bloomberg-surveyed econo

It was another tough week for stocks. The S&P 500 Index was down just shy of 4% last week, briefly dipping intraday into correction territory (more than 10% off the all-time high) and putting October on track to be the weakest month for stocks since the financial crisis. Concern about an earnings slowdown and a potentially overly aggressive Federal Reserve (Fed) seemed to be the primary drivers, but market participants saw little, if anything, encouraging out of the other “bricks” in the stock market’s wall of worry. These include the U.S.-China trade dispute, Italy’s deficit spending, Brexit uncertainty, Saudi ten

After several months of historic calm, stocks sold off sharply last week. Rising interest rates and trade war fears were cited as the primary causes of the sell-off that caused the Dow Jones Industrial Average to drop more than 1300 points on Wednesday and Thursday combined. Concerns about corporate profit margins peaking and a potentially overcrowded tech trade also likely played a role in upsetting a market that had been extraordinarily calm over the past six months. The S&P 500 Index did manage to pare losses, thanks to solid gains on Friday, but still ended the week down over 4%, for the worst week since March. Here we share some pers

Earnings season off to a good start. Third quarter earnings season is rolling and, so far, results have been quite good overall, supported by strong U.S. economic growth, robust U.S. manufacturing activity, tax cuts, and big increases in energy and financials sector profits. Below we recap the results of earnings season thus far, discuss why we expect strong results to continue throughout the reporting season, and highlight several keys we are watching.

Good Numbers so Far

We’re not even 20% through third quarter earnings results, but the numbers have been solid thus far despite pressure on profit margins from tariffs an